Pandemics
by LuxaLucifer
Summary: Remus and a pregnant Tonks are enjoying some fresh air when a very passionate Muggle woman approaches them telling them about the most pressing threat that faces humanity: the bird flu.


Written for the Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition. I had to write about a plague or epidemic, so I wrote about bird flu, which was big in Britain right about the time of the second war. Honestly, this is the most difficult piece I think I've ever had to write for this competition, and I'm sorry if it's not any good.

* * *

Remus Lupin held his wife's hand and wondered if other people thought they were a cute couple. No, he decided, because even though Tonks was the poster child for a cute pregnancy, her hand resting on her rounded stomach and her head on his shoulder as she slept off a morning of ice cream, he was not the shining example of a good husband.

But he'd been ordered not to dwell on his failures, so he focused instead of twining their fingers together and staring at the view from their park bench. Which was not a view of a park at all, actually, but a roadway. The label was somewhat misleading.

"You two!"

Remus was surprised out of his melancholy daze by a shrill female voice, hand clenching around Tonks's as he reached for his wand, Tonks doing the same.

"Who the hell are you?" said Tonks, standing. She was not accustomed to being a pregnant woman. Remus had a feeling she never would be. Thankfully it was not a permanent state.

The shrill female voice belonged to an old woman who tottered towards them with a vengeance unlike any Remus had seen before. Remus and Tonks had both faced Death Eaters, the portrait of Sirius's mother, an angry Molly Weasley, and Voldemort himself; this woman still managed to rank in the top five Angry People either of them had seen.

"Do you know where you are?" said the old woman, so angry her spit threatened to engulf Remus's pregnant wife. He felt that, at this point, he should probably take a stand.

"We are in a bloody park!" announced Tonks loudly. Apparently the view of the roadway was close enough to a park for her.

"Dora," he said quietly. "We are in a _public_ park." If it was a park to her, it was a park to him too.

Fresh air, said the midwife. Fresh air, said Molly. So Remus had accompanied Tonks into this well-recommended "fresh air", away from their wards and their spells, where any Death Eater could stumble upon them. Or, apparently, any Muggle.

Tonks shot him a quick glance. "I know," she said. "But do you really think she's one of _them?__"_

Fair point, thought Remus as he stared at the old woman's flyway strands of grey hair and quilted scarves.

"Ma'am," said Remus finally, standing at Tonks' side. "Can you please explain what you're talking about?"

"You're in a park that's _teeming_ with the bird flu!"

Remus and Tonks stared at the old lady, who stared right back. Apparently she had expected rather more of a reaction.

"I'm sorry," said Remus politely. "I don't quite understand."

Tonks stared at the lady. "Merlin's beard."

The old lady ignored Tonks's Wizarding expletive and continued with her own line of thought, an approach Remus thought she had rather mastered.

"What the hell to do mean, you don't understand? No less than six people- six people, I tell you, six! Six people who used to sit on that bench here are dead, you know that? And you're just sitting here thinking it's such a pretty day, huh? It's not! You think that way, you'll be dead in a minute!"

Remus gaped at her. Thankfully, Tonks had words with which to reply. Sadly, they were not the words he would have chosen.

"Look, you old coot, dead people in the park are the worst of my worries right now!"

"Actually," said Remus. "I worry about dead people. I do not like finding dead people…well, anywhere."

The old lady stomped her feet and began to wag a finger at them. "You'll get it too, if you don't get your damn shots. You've got your shots, right?"

Remus and Tonks exchanged glances.

"Uh," said Remus.

The old lady began to turn an unnatural purple color. Remus was beginning to think they should go. She might not be a Death Eater, but that didn't mean she wasn't dangerous.

"We don't get sick," said Tonks.

The color in her face was really quite terrifying combined with her eye bulge. Remus realized how arrogant that sounded coming out of Tonks's mouth, so he opened his to speak. Tonks beat him to it yet again.

"We're vampires," she added.

"We are not vampires," he said quickly. "We're not vampires. We are not vampires."

The woman sniffed. "Well," she said. "If you were vampires, I suppose you wouldn't need flu shots."

Tonks shot him a look. He sighed deeply.

"We're vampires."

"I'm a pregnant vampire," said Tonks cheerily.

"We're going to go now."

The bulge was decreasing, as was the reddened face issue, to be replaced by a look of confusion. Remus couldn't blame her. He waved awkwardly as they turned away, reaching his hand down to grab his wife's pretty fingers, tucking his wand back in his pocket finally.

Tonks looked back, and he didn't see what she was doing until the old woman shrieked and Tonks turned to him with a bird's beak instead of a nose.

"I've got bird flu," was all she would say.

Remus tried not to laugh. He really did.

"You have broken so many laws today," he grumbled, turning his frown upside-down. "We need to get home."

"Remus?"

"Yes?"

Tonks morphed her nose back, bumping her head against his shoulder. "I had a good time. We should get fresh air more often."

"Not if you're going to break fifty more laws," he replied.

"…Do you really think there's a bird flu? Muggles don't need anything else to worry about, not on top of Voldemort."

"She might just be some deluded old lady."

"Yeah, or she might be right."

He pressed a kiss to her forehead, frowning. "We have more important things to worry about."

They Disapparated, leaving the park that was not really a park and the old lady who guarded it behind. When they never came back, she added them to her body count.


End file.
